18 Jun 05

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Same Again...
This was an almost identical repeat of yesterday. Conditions were good enough to visit Briancon but the lower cloudbases further north prevented further progress. I had a particularly hard time on Prachaval, the magic mountain near St Crepin, which was today behaving more like the spin cycle of a washing machine. The north-east wind chopped the thermals on its sunny face making it something of a struggle to reach the top. Not all of us made it - Wendy in her ASW 27 (700) called it a day and landed at St Crepin, choosing to aerotow home when conditions had calmed down a little.


Frozen lake near Plampinet


Pelvoux

I managed to reach the Val d'Etroit (west of Bardonecchia) and then took a scenic route home via the glacier Blanc and the col de Couleau. A short tour along the parcours in 8/8ths and poor visibility persuaded me back to the sunshine of the Gap valley and an early landing.

 

Other pilots had their own problems, of course, and Ariane's came in the form of a complete failure of her pneumatic instruments, noticed as she was on tow. After landing back, investigations revealed the presence of a small spider which had set up home somewhere along the pitot system. The close attentions of a Bruce the bailiff soon had it evicted and Ariane was ready to fly again.


Morgon's southern face

  

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